


There's No Return to Sender

by eshkol (hernameisgeorge)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hernameisgeorge/pseuds/eshkol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Frankly, it's a stupid holiday, and I can't wait until it's over."</p><p>Dirk's hand clenched around the Valentine he had been about to give his best friend, Jake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Return to Sender

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first Homestuck fanfiction. I'm actually pretty proud of it.
> 
> Title from "Stupid Love Letters" by the Friday Night Boys.
> 
> [Also posted on Tumblr](http://aradias-temporal-shenanigans.tumblr.com/post/60514338331/theres-no-return-to-sender).

"Frankly, it's a stupid holiday, and I can't wait until it's over."

Dirk's hand clenched around the Valentine he had been about to give his best friend, Jake.

Valentine might not be the right word for it though. It was more of a love letter. Dirk was finally going to reveal his huge crush on Jake and now it was ruined by the man himself.

"Yeah," Dirk said, trying not to let on just how much his heart just sank, "it's so dumb. I wouldn't be caught dead giving someone a Valentine." Overkill, Dirk. Shut the hell up before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.

Thankfully, Jake didn't seem to notice anything was amiss. "It's all a bunch of malarkey thought up by the scoundrels who work for those treacherous card and candy companies. A clever ruse to pilfer the wallets of unsuspecting shoppers."

Dirk just nodded and agreed until they parted ways outside of his next class.

==>

"It's a good thing you're so smart, Dirk, because otherwise you'd be in some serious shit," Roxy said as they walked to lunch together. "You barely paid attention last period. What was so important in that notebook of yours?"

"Nothing!"

She winked at him. "I'll bet you were writing a secret love letter to Jake." Roxy was the only one who knew about Dirk's crush. "That's totes what you were doing, isn't it?"

"No," he said defensively, even though that's totally what he was doing. He spent the entire period revising his original letter into something less incriminating. Something he could anonymously drop on Jake's locker. Speaking of which...

"I'll meet you in the cafeteria," Dirk said. "I need to grab something out of my locker."

Roxy winked at him once more before continuing down the hall.

Dirk made his way back down the hall towards Jake's locker, and after making sure nobody was around, he opened it and put the note on the top shelf.

==>

About halfway through lunch, Jake ran in and almost slammed into the table in his haste to get over to his friends. Dirk stiffened when he saw that Jake was carrying his letter.

"You'll never guess what I found in my locker!" he said excitedly.

"A love letter?" Roxy gave Dirk a look when Jake's back was turned.

Jake blinked. "Gadzooks! You're excellent at guessing, Roxy!"

Roxy and Jane both balked.

"Who's it from?" Jane asked.

"It doesn't say. It's signed, 'your secret admirer.'"

"What a cliché." Roxy gave Dirk another look.

He averted his gaze and instead focused on randomly poking at his food. He had hoped that Jake wouldn't get to his locker until after lunch, when he wouldn't have to hear him complain about Valentine's Day some more, and possibly make fun of him, albeit inadvertently.

He was so wrong.

Instead, Jake spent the rest of lunch speculating with Jane as to who it could be. He was way too interested for someone who hated Valentine's Day.

==>

It went on for two days.

"Good gravy," he said to Dirk when they were supposed to be studying at Jake's house. "You don't think it's Jane, do you?"

Dirk gritted his teeth. It seemed that even Jake, forever oblivious, knew that Jane was interested in him.

"It's not her."

"How do you know that? Even you're not that good."

"I just know."

"Well how can you kno-"

"Because I wrote it!" Dirk shouted. He quickly got up and began shoving all of his things into his bag. "I wrote the fucking letter, because I've been totally in love with you for over a year now, and I figured Valentine's Day would be the perfect time to finally tell you!"

He fled the house then, stopping only to say a short goodbye to Jake's grandmother. It wasn't until he reached the car he borrowed from his bro that he realized what he'd just done.

"Shit." He let his head fall forward onto the steering wheel.

==>

Dirk dreaded going to school the next day because he would undoubtedly have to see Jake. They had the same homeroom; it was unavoidable.

He was lucky though. When Jake walked into the classroom, he took one look at Dirk and went to sit with Jane, immediately striking up a conversation with her.

It probably went like:

JAKE: Dirk was the one who wrote that letter I found in my locker.

JANE: What, really?

JAKE: Yeah. Apparently he's got this huge crush on me.

JANE: Hahah, what a loser.

JAKE: Pathetic.

Or something along those lines. Yeah, that's definitely what they were saying. There is no chance that it could be anything else.

==>

"We need to talk."

Dirk stiffened. He closed his locker and turned to face Jake. "Okay. Bleachers?"

They had an unspoken agreement that whenever they had to have a serious discussion, which was surprisingly often, they did it on the bleachers.

Jake nodded and Dirk immediately turned around and headed towards the doors, not looking at Jake once until they were sitting in the stands, overlooking the football field.

"All right," Dirk said, "out with it. Why did you want to talk? Is it officially time to make fun of Dirk? I had really hoped I'd missed that one."

"I'm not going to make fun of you, why would you think that? I just want to know why."

"Why what?"

Jake sighed. "Why you didn't tell me, why you decided to tell me now, why you did it anonymously. Pick your favorite."

"You're my best friend. I didn't want to risk it being awkward."

"No, that's not why. I know you better than that. Give me some credit."

Dirk was glad his shades obscured his eyes, if this conversation went where he suspected it was going. "I was totally prepared to finally tell you. I was going to give you the unabridged letter because I knew I wasn't going to be able to get it all out.

"But then you started going on about how much you hated Valentine's Day; how stupid it was, and I panicked. So I spent all of the next period rewriting it, so that it could be from anybody, and slipped it into your locker."

"I did wonder why it was sitting neatly on the shelf," Jake said.

Dirk laughed humorlessly. "You got it much earlier than I expected. I had to sit through lunch listening to you and Jane speculating about who it could be. I mean, did you even consider that it could've been me?"

Jake went to sit in front of Dirk so that he was forced to look him in the eye. "Oh for frigs flippin' sake, of course I thought of you; I'm not that stupid. But you were the one person I knew it wasn't."

He continued before Dirk could respond to that. "I ranted about Valentine's Day, sure, but you agreed with me. I didn't think you would even acknowledge the holiday, let alone participate."

"I didn't think I would either, but here we are." He thought of something else. "Why did you care so much anyway? You hate Valentine's Day."

"I was flattered. If somebody wrote something like that about you, wouldn't you want to know who it was?"

Dirk scoffed. "It wasn't that good. I'm no Shakespeare."

"Are you kidding? You were waxing poetic about my affinity for wearing shorts year round."

Dirk winced, having forgotten about that particular paragraph. "In my defense, I was actually pretty drunk when I wrote the first draft. I looked it over when I woke up and saw that I spent two pages comparing your butt to a smuppet rump."

Jake sniggered. "I think I'd like to read that some time."

"Does this mean we can still be friends?"

Jake shook his head and Dirk's heart sank. "I'm afraid that won't work, chum." Then he reached over and took Dirk's hand, giving him a shy smile when he looked at him incredulously.

Dirk just barely smiled and looked out at the field.

They didn't talk. No words were needed. Dirk said them already.

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: If you remember this being posted under a different name, you'd be right! This work was written by me, and I decided to move it to this pseud.


End file.
